Although the words might and lucky are the key words in that statement!

It is behind farcical now though really. Last years release schedule was bad, and they ea showed some kind of potential improvement with releasing them in batches offering some hope of having all of them sooner, but that was short lived and they quickly showed their ineptness with the 3rd batch I think it was!

I just don’t get it. I understand about managing the market and keeping people waiting to in theory keep them playing the game, but for people striving towards certain top players, I understand them taking a long break or giving up all together by this point. If you have to wait 8 or 9 months for a certain player to either get the best version (which changed mid game) or not lose a boatload of coins, what’s the point?

EA have created some real negative sentiment with the way Icons (moments) and Icon SBCs have been handled this year. Very poor.

I just don’t get it. I understand about managing the market and keeping people waiting to in theory keep them playing the game, but for people striving towards certain top players, I understand them taking a long break or giving up all together by this point. If you have to wait 8 or 9 months for a certain player to either get the best version (which changed mid game) or not lose a boatload of coins, what’s the point?

EA have created some real negative sentiment with the way Icons (moments) and Icon SBCs have been handled this year. Very poor.

Completely agree. It's all been handled so so badly.

Having to wait months into the game cycle for the best icons to be released as SBCs is awful. And some of them won't even been released.

Last year wasn't great but it's been a million miles better than this year. Who thought expiry dates was a good idea!?

Replying to all of you here. I couldn't agree more. The Icon roll-out has been antithetical to the game's own aims. It's LESSENED hype and enjoyment, not heightened it (for me anyway). And I cannot agree more that while at the time we thought last year had issues (waiting to release Primes wasn't cool), the sad fact is it was better than this train wreck we are dealing with now.

The sad part for me is - and this is going to sound haughty, but it's just the truth - I slayed this year. Came out the gate hot, traded like an animal through December, and was cruising to 1000 goals with the goat with enough coin in the bank to do the Vieira, Roberto, Desailly, Bergkamp, Pires SBCs. I was content. Sure, some cool cards would pop from time to time and spice things up (think FFS Guendozi, RTG Mkhy, etc.) but I had a plan (based off of previous years), I executed by putting in the time and FP (early), and I was set to enjoy FIFA through TOTS and then maybe mix it up a bit.

And the simple fact of the matter is: EA knew that. And they purposefully and predator-ily pulled the rug out from all of us. I don't begrudge them making money - never have. in fact I often poke fun at those who moan on here, reminding them that at the end of the day it is a business. But this is a step too far - and it's not PIMs per say, it's the precedent. They can, and will, burn the forest down if it suits them - come what may. Call my crazy, but I'm actually worried that come June/July they will just release ANOTHER set of PIMs (maybe with a new name) and move the goal posts again.

I'm all for new cards, but there needs to be some degree of predictable limits or confines here - some way for the hardcore players to gauge the "living organism" that is the market and make some modicum of sense out of it all; otherwise, this is nothing more than capitalist chaos. The fact that they've purposely shied away from Icon submissions for Icon SBCs is evidence enough to know they are purposefully trying to change the game on us in a way that negatively affects those who tried to plan ahead - and for what? To punish those who love the game most?

Last year we didn't know when we were going to get the icons but at least we knew they were coming eventually and on a Throwback Thursday (and I think by now we'd already had Vieira, R10 and Henry with R9, Gullit and Maldini following in April!).

With these Moments SBCs we have been deprived of SBCs a big chunk of the primes and for some of them we won't even get a Moments SBC unless I'm mistaken.

The whole thing is a farce. The expiry dates on the early batches was a joke but might have made sense if they released all of the primes in batches (maybe one a week?) and then at the end they just re-released all of them with no expiry. However the way they have done it has just been ridiculous and just doesn't make sense.

Like you've said they are punishing the players that play this game the most. It's staggering.